


Falling but already Fallen

by DarkFairytale



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Accidents, Boys In Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Hurt Eddie Diaz, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Oblivious Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Oblivious Evan "Buck" Buckley, Pre-Relationship, Protective Eddie Diaz, Protective Evan "Buck" Buckley, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, These boys are so in love, and they don't even know it, until now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24279682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFairytale/pseuds/DarkFairytale
Summary: Buck coughed back to consciousness, choking on the dust and debris that hung thick in the air. The motion jarred his right side; the side he was laying on, the side he’dlandedon, and even as the winded pain forced him to curl in on himself until the coughs subsided, the only thought on his mind wasEddie.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 849





	Falling but already Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I am back with another 9-1-1 Buddie fic! Warning for spoilers for all of Season 3!
> 
> Disclaimer: All first responder protocol in this is likely very inaccurate, but I plead ignorance! 
> 
> Any glaring spelling mistakes or errors, let me know and I'll change them!

Buck coughed back to consciousness, choking on the dust and debris that hung thick in the air. The motion jarred his right side; the side he was laying on, the side he’d _landed_ on, and even as the winded pain forced him to curl in on himself until the coughs subsided, the only thought on his mind was _Eddie._

***

The team had been called out to an underage party being illegally held in a condemned apartment block. The party had been on the first floor, and some of the floor above had collapsed on a group of teenagers. Luckily there had been no fatalities. The team had gotten all the partygoers out and were doing one last routine onceover of the building to make sure that there weren’t any teens putting themselves in potential danger by hiding from the first responders and cops so that they wouldn’t get in trouble.

“How’s it looking fellas?” Bobby had walked into the room Eddie and Buck had just checked.

“Nobody else here, Cap,” Eddie had said.

Bobby had nodded to confirm he hadn’t found anyone either. “Guess they’ve all finally learned that it’s not such a good idea to hang around too long in dilapidated buildings.”

“Yeah,” Buck had joked, “I think the building decided it had had enough of teenage parties so shut it down for them.”

As if in response, the building had made an almighty and horrifyingly unstable sound.

One second Buck and Eddie had been staring at Bobby, and the next more of the ceiling above them had caved as the floor beneath their feet gave way, sending them plummeting to the basement level below.

***

“Eddie!” Buck choked out, squinting around blearily as his eyes tried to adjust to the gloom and the dust, “Eddie?”

He shifted a little, testing, and when that seemed to go ok without any worrying levels of pain, he pushed himself carefully up onto his elbow and tried to focus. With the same talent Buck had to be able to almost immediately pick out his best friend in any crowd, it only took him seconds to find Eddie’s form, where it lay a few metres away. A familiar fear seized him - one that he hadn’t felt since Eddie had been buried underground - and it had him immediately dragging himself to Eddie’s side.

“Eddie?” Buck rasped, voice shaking with that fear.

Eddie was on his back, unconscious - his eyes closed - but now that Buck was closer, he could see clearly that Eddie was breathing, and it didn’t look or sound laboured.

“Eddie?” Buck softly called him again as he cupped Eddie’s face in his hands, ignoring how his right arm jarred and protested at the movement. “Hey Eddie? It’s Buck. I’m here. Can you hear me?” Buck passed his fingers over the sides of Eddie’s face until they met his helmet, removing some of the debris that had settled on his face, but was careful not to jostle him, concerned that Eddie might have injured his spine if he’d landed on his back. Something had cut a thin red line across Eddie’s cheek. Buck just hoped the helmet had done its job and protected Eddie’s head. “Come on Eddie, come back to me buddy…”

The surge of relief he felt when Eddie responded with a confused “B-ck?” had Buck grinning gratefully wide, despite their situation.

“Hey Eddie,” Buck breathed, “You ok?” His thumb was resting close to the corner of Eddie’s eye and he tapped it gently, “Can you open your eyes?”

Eddie did, and Buck laughed thickly at the sight of Eddie’s brown eyes. In that moment it felt like they were the most beautiful thing Buck had ever seen. And so was the way Eddie’s forehead creased a little in confusion as he stared up at Buck, a second before his face cleared in realisation as he remembered.

“Buck!” Almost immediately Eddie’s hand lifted to Buck’s face in turn, his gaze searching, “You ok?”

“I asked first,” Buck countered.

Eddie gave him an incredulous look but began to slowly sit up, Buck helping him with the arm he hadn’t landed on. Eddie immediately appeared to notice that.

“I think I’m alright,” Eddie confirmed, eyeing the way Buck kept his right arm at his side, “You?”

“Nothing broken,” Buck was sure of that, “But I’m going to have some impressive bruises from the landing. I think I landed on my arm.”

Eddie nodded, but was apparently not appeased until he had given Buck a medical onceover. He got himself to his feet and then turned to help pull Buck to standing, checking Buck's right arm and side with practiced touches. “Anything on the radio?” he asked as he checked.

Buck shook his head, “Not since I woke up. That was only a couple of minutes before you did.” He winced when Eddie’s hand pressed against his ribs.

“Sorry Buck,” Eddie murmured, “Good news though, nothing feels broken. Think you’re going to be black and blue for a couple of weeks though.”

“I can live with that,” Buck said, before he could stop himself.

They stared at each other grimly, before turning to simultaneously assess their situation. They had a habit of doing that; being able to communicate and act without words. It gave them major advantages as partners on call outs. Bobby called it a ‘gift’, Chim called it ‘freaky’, Maddie called it ‘cute’, and it made Hen roll her eyes.

As Eddie wandered further away from Buck, gauging their surroundings, his radio crackled with the broken sound of Bobby’s urgent tone; “B-ley, Diaz, -ome in…”

Buck moved to Eddie’s side, checking his own radio with a frown, to find that it hadn’t survived the fall. He looked back up at Eddie, who nodded at him in wordless understanding before pressing the button on his radio.

“Come in, Cap? Buckley and Diaz both accounted for. Only my radio is functional. Over.” Eddie frowned at Buck when he got no response, and Buck moved them until they were standing dead centre below the hole they had come down through, where the light was better, and hopefully, allowed for better radio access. Eddie repeated the statement.

Buck squinted up towards the light. He was sure they had only fallen through one storey, but it looked like the shapes of people he could see at the edge of the hole above were two storeys up.

“It’s good to hear your voice, Eddie,” Bobby’s voice came through the radio much clearer, now. “You both ok?”

“Bruised, but nothing broken that we can tell,” Eddie reported, “What’s the situation?”

“The first floor is too unstable. We are setting up a rope to come down to you from the second floor.”

“The stuff that came down on top of us,” Buck realised with a mutter to Eddie, “It must have made a hole a level up.”

“You make it sound like a video game,” Eddie commented to him with a wry grin, and somehow even covered in dust and debris, he still looked unfairly handsome.

Buck automatically brushed the largest piece of debris from Eddie’s shoulder, “Well it’s a good job we’re both ace at video games.” even if Eddie _did_ have an uncanny ability to win their games nine times out of ten.

“What kind of space are you looking at down there?” Bobby asked. He sounded worried.

Buck shared a look with Eddie before Eddie replied, “About six or seven metres circumference. We’ve got a wall on two sides and big pieces of debris blocking the rest. Moving any of it might bring more down on top of us.”

He trailed off as the building seemed to respond to his assessment by making a very dissatisfied sound. Buck looked upwards again, and that was when he noticed truly how unstable the storey above them was. It looked on the verge of total collapse. If all of that came down into their below-surface-level, the likelihood that their 6x6m space would be filled in and they would be buried was pretty damn high. When Buck glanced at Eddie, Eddie’s expression clearly showed that he had realised the same.

Bobby sounded like he agreed too; “We are going to have to work fast. The second floor will probably only hold the weight of one man being pulled up at a time. We are sending the rope down to you now. As soon as the first one is up, we will send it straight back down for the second. Understood?”

Buck looked at Eddie and Eddie looked back. Buck already knew they were thinking the same thing. The first person to go up would have a better chance of survival than the second one; the weight of bringing up the first might be too much for the floors above, and even if that didn’t happen, there was still more risk of what remained of the first floor coming down on whoever was down there the longest.

“Yeah Cap,” Eddie spoke into the radio, not taking his eyes off Buck, “Understood. We will let you know when the rope reaches us. Over.”

“You’ll go first,” Buck said, because there wasn’t an argument to be had.

Well, as far as _Buck_ was concerned, apparently, because Eddie immediately shook his head, jaw set.

“No,” Eddie said adamantly. “You’ll go first.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Buck said, “Look, we both know whatever the chances are, they are better for whoever goes up first-”

“Which is why you’re going up first,” Eddie countered sharply, “You are struggling to move your right arm. If you go second it’ll take longer for you to get yourself hooked onto the rope and if… _if_ anything comes down, your injuries will make it harder for you to get yourself out of it.”

“I’ve had worse injuries than this,” Buck scoffed dismissively.

“You think I don’t _know_ that!” Eddie snapped. The building creaked. “You think I don’t know that?” Eddie hissed more quietly, after a wary glance upwards.

“And you think I want to see you potentially get buried alive _again_? I can’t do that, Eddie,” Buck didn’t care that his voice broke as he said it, “I can’t, you have no idea what I-”

“No idea?” Eddie gave an incredulous, horrified laugh, “Buck, I have seen you being _crushed_. So yeah, I have an idea. And _I_ don’t want to have to see _that_ _again_.”

“This shouldn’t even be an argument,” Buck finally voiced his first thought aloud, fiercely, “If it’s between you and me. You have Christopher to think about, Eddie, and your family-”

“And what about _your_ family?” Eddie argued.

“You know I love Maddie,” Buck said, trying to be reasonable, “But in comparison to what you have? Christopher, your Abuela, Pepa, your sisters, your parents…”

“Maddie isn’t your only family,” Eddie argued, and Buck was amazed at how severely Eddie was arguing about this, “You have Bobby, who basically sees you as a _son_ , you have Chim, Hen, Athena and most importantly you have-”

“But they aren’t dependent on me,” Buck interrupted, not understanding how this was such an issue. It was just logical to him. Eddie had Christopher and his family; Bobby and Athena had each other and May and Harry; Hen had Karen, Denny and Nia; and Buck’s only blood relation that cared about him was Maddie, but she had Chim, and the baby on the way. If anything happened to Buck, Maddie would cope because she had Chim, but if Eddie’s family lost Eddie…it was a no brainer to Buck. Buck only had Maddie and the team and the job. He didn’t have anything outside of that. Not like Eddie did.

Buck stepped away as the rope finally descended between them, glaring at Eddie challengingly.

Eddie glared right back as he activated his radio to confirm, “Come in Cap. The rope has reached us. Over.”

“Let us know when you’re ready to come up. Over.”

“See?” Buck said, gesturing at Eddie’s radio, “Even Cap knows it should be you first!”

“That is not what he meant and you know it! He was talking to the both of us!” Eddie argued. “And since the only working radio is mine, it makes sense that I go second, in case it’s needed.”

Buck immediately held out his left hand, “Then hand it over and let’s get you clipped in.”

“No,” Eddie refused.

The building made a noise of utmost protest.

“Eddie we don’t have time for this,” Buck rubbed a hand over his face in anxious exasperation. “Think about your family!”

And that was when Eddie fisted a hand in Buck's jacket and yanked him forwards. Buck stared at him, startled, as Eddie looked up at him, his dark eyes searching and the most serious Buck had ever seen them.

“I am,” Eddie insisted, before pushing up into Buck and kissing him.

Buck was frozen, totally and utterly frozen. It took a moment for his brain to truly and properly catch up with what was happening and when realisation dawned, he found that it wasn’t shock that Eddie was _kissing_ him; it was shock that Eddie was kissing _him_. And huh. What?

Eddie was Buck’s best friend. Eddie was Buck’s best friend and Buck loved him like…well, Buck loved him. And holy shit. It was like a puzzle with all but the last few pieces finally falling into place.

In those few seconds of Eddie’s soft lips pressed hard against his, the scrape of Eddie’s stubble against Buck’s chin, Eddie’s hip under Buck’s hand, Buck went through several years’ worth of life-changing epiphanies.

_“So, does this boy crush on Eddie mean you’re finally ready to move on from Abby?”_

_“He is so cute.” - “Yeah, he gets that a lot. You should meet his kid though.”_

He had always known Eddie was beautiful, from the moment he had seen him and felt threatened by him, to a few minutes ago when he had naturally thought that the sight of Eddie’s eyes were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He had always known that; had acknowledged it aloud plenty of times. But how had he not connected that him finding Eddie attractive was him being _attracted_ to Eddie?! Maybe it was because he had immediately deemed Eddie unattainable? Straight? But Eddie was kissing him, Eddie was not straight? Eddie was kissing him…

_“You two have an adorable son.” - “Thank you.”_

He adored Eddie’s son. He would give his life if it meant keeping Christopher safe. Eddie and Christopher had welcomed him into their lives and home like he belonged there. Even in the days Buck had worried he had nobody, in the back of his mind he had always known he would have Eddie and Christopher. Unless Eddie found himself a new girlfriend, like that teacher he had briefly…wait...Buck had been _jealous_ hadn’t he? Threatened that his parenting role in Christopher’s life, his _partnering_ role in Eddie’s, might come to an end? But maybe he shouldn't have felt threatened because Eddie was kissing _him_ …

_“I just want you to talk to me. Even if it’s just to say that you’re still mad.”_

Eddie was the best friend Buck had ever had. They worked together seamlessly, and being ripped apart by the lawsuit had been a pain of loss that Buck hadn’t felt in quite the same way before. All he had wanted, longed for, been desperate for, was for Eddie to talk to him again, to smile at him again, to love him again and oh...  
and Eddie was kissing him…

_“That won’t happen to us.”_

Buck’s determination to never leave Eddie’s side, to never be parted from Eddie; prepared to dig through forty feet of mud and earth with his bare hands; it was because he loved him. He _loved_ him.

All of the pieces fell into place during a millisecond of Eddie _kissing_ him.

And then Buck kissed him back.

Eddie let out a soft breath; surprised, exhilarated, relieved? The kiss intensified.

Eddie was _kissing_ him.

He was _kissing_ Eddie…

Buck heard the sound of a metal buckle locking into place and he pushed Eddie away. As Eddie moved back it gave Buck a clear view of the rope, which Eddie had attached to Buck’s belt harness while he’d been distracted.

***

Kissing Buck was something Eddie had maybe imagined doing, once or twice or several times before, but certainly not under these circumstances. Buck had so effortlessly and selflessly entered Eddie and Christopher’s lives that Eddie had been helpless to adoring Evan Buckley for everything that he was and everything about him. So yes, Eddie _had_ dreamed of Buck kissing him, or him kissing Buck, but had awkwardly and adamantly decided that it was just because he hadn’t been intimate with anyone for so long. Not since Shannon. And it was because of Shannon that Eddie had not even considered getting close to anyone; and that apparently had included not recognising what was truly growing between him and Buck; or at least, in him towards Buck. Sure, he had been a little jealous when Buck's attention had been taken up by the odd woman here and there, and he had taken an immediate dislike to Abby, but that was because he was Buck's best friend and so it was only right for him to be on Buck's side, or so he had told himself at the time.

But there was no denying that fading back to consciousness mere minutes ago, with Buck looking down at him with such worry and relief had given Eddie strength. Buck’s quick dismissal of his own importance in other people’s lives, in _Eddie’s_ life and eyes, had broken Eddie’s heart. Buck was Eddie’s family. Eddie had thought it many times before, and spoken of it in terms of their wider fire family, but he had never truly _realised_ just how much he couldn’t fathom the idea of no longer having Buck in his life. He couldn’t do it. He could not imagine his life anymore without Evan Buckley in it. Because he… _Dios_ …Eddie loved him didn't he?

Kissing Buck had been the only thing Eddie could do. The only way he could think of to communicate the overwhelming sudden _realisation_ he was experiencing. And the only way he could think of to distract Buck - whether he responded positively to the kiss or not - to be able to…

He had taken hold of the rope when he had moved in to kiss Buck, and he managed to fasten it onto Buck’s harness belt.

The look of shock on Buck’s face, his wide blue eyes, had Eddie feeling a whole tornado of emotions, but regret was not one of them. He was not regretful for the kiss and he was not regretful for making sure that he got Buck out of there first.

“Eddie!” Buck exclaimed looking betrayed for all of two seconds before it morphed into panic at the sight of Eddie reaching for his radio again, “Eddie…” he begged.

“Come in Cap. Buck’s ready to come up. Over.”

“Ok Eddie. Over,” came Bobby’s reply without any questioning over Buck coming up first, just as Eddie knew there wouldn’t be, and Eddie quirked his eyebrow at Buck as Buck was clearly proven wrong to question Bobby’s thoughts on the matter.

“You and your damn martyr complex,” Buck snapped.

Eddie gawped, “Says the king of the martyr complex?!”

Buck looked about to retort, but his anger drained really fast as the rope immediately tautened and he had to hold onto it with his good arm as he began to be hoisted up. “Eddie I can’t…” Buck protested, reaching out to him with his bad arm to grasp at him as though he could still convince Eddie to change his mind.

“And I can’t lose you,” Eddie said simply, catching Buck’s hand for just a moment before it moved out of reach. He smiled, only now letting it wobble just a little bit, just in case this really was his last chance to look at Buck, “Just send that rope straight back down for me once you get up there, ok?”

Buck was still staring down at him, eyes wide and shining and Eddie had to look away from the power of it.

***

Eddie had experienced the perception of time morph seconds into hours plenty of times. That night in the Valley of Death; the day of the earthquake and being unable to reach Christopher until it was over; seeing Shannon lying in the road; Buck trapped under the ladder truck; those few seconds of seeing and hearing Buck’s devastation after the tsunami before spotting Christopher behind him; being buried under forty feet of mud with the water rising…those had all been seconds, minutes and hours that had stretched into something far, far longer. Eddie was adding this wait to that list of experiences. It had to be only minutes, but it felt much, much longer, waiting for confirmation of Buck’s safety, as the worrying sounds of the floor above him increasingly threatened his own safety.

“Come in Eddie? It’s Chim. The rope’s heading down to you as I speak. Over.”

Eddie had never been more relieved to hear Chim’s voice. He also wasn’t surprised that the voice was no longer Bobby’s, “Hey Chim. I guess Cap's with Buck?”

“How you got him to come up before you I have _no_ idea,” Eddie could hear Chim’s incredulity even over the radio, “But yeah, Bobby had to get him outside before he jumped right back down there again to join you.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“The rope will be with you any second, Eddie. Let me know when it’s reached you. Over.”

Despite Chim’s promise, it felt like another age before the rope reached Eddie’s waist height.

“Come in Chim. Got it. Just clipping in. Over.” Eddie wasted no time in fastening himself to the rope, sending constant uneasy glances at the groaning floor above that was due to collapse very, very soon. “Come in Chim. Lift me up. Over.”

Eddie breathed a sigh of relief has he cleared through the hole of the first floor. Looking down at it, he could truly see just how bad it was. It was a miracle that Bobby hadn’t gone down with them when it had initially failed. It looked like as a little as a baseball thrown at it would send the whole thing down. The relief of clearing the first storey was nothing compared to the relief Eddie felt when he was finally pulled over the lip of the hole of the second storey of the building.

“Good job Eddie,” Chim clasped his shoulder and made quick work of freeing Eddie from the rope. “The exit’s that way. We’re packing this stuff up real fast. This floor has been looking less stable by the minute.”

Eddie nodded, not wanting to waste any time for Chim and the team in grabbing the rope and pulleys and getting out, and not wanting to waste any time in getting to see Buck. He already knew and dreaded how angry Buck would be with him. He clasped Chim’s arm in turn and then left immediately, as instructed.

As soon as he was out and clear of the building, removing his helmet to breath more freely, there was a cry of “Eddie!” and he turned to see Buck break from Bobby’s hold and Hen’s check-up to stumble towards him until he crashed into him and hugged him with such force that Eddie was nearly winded all over again.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said into Buck’s ear, meeting Bobby and Hen’s gaze over Buck’s shoulder and gesturing that he was fine behind Buck’s back. They seemed to understand, and didn’t move to approach them.

“You made me go first,” Buck accused quietly, with far less heat than Eddie had expected, “You made me go first!”

“Of course I did,” Eddie huffed, “I wasn’t about to leave you behind, was I?”

Buck went rigid in Eddie’s arms and Eddie frowned worriedly, until Buck then suddenly relaxed against him completely, all tension draining in a matter of seconds. “You didn’t leave me behind,” Buck muttered, seemingly more to himself than Eddie.

Eddie had no idea what significance that apparently had, but pulled back enough to frown at Buck, “Of course I didn’t,” Eddie said, puzzled, “I could never leave you behind.”

Buck’s reaction was immediate. He smiled at him, and it was a truly devastating smile, full of old anguish and new happiness and residual adrenaline and _hope_ , so much so that Eddie was taken aback. The expression was fleeting, and quickly schooled into one of teasing apprehension, “Please tell me that what you did to distract me wasn’t _just_ to distract me…”

“It wasn’t,” Eddie said, because it was as simple as that, and from the way Buck was looking at him, and the way he had asked, Eddie knew that his feelings weren’t one-sided, “It wasn’t.”

Buck didn’t have to search his face for long before the smile increased to blinding levels, and Buck reached up his left hand. He didn’t move to kiss Eddie - not in front of the team - but his thumb lingered at the corner of Eddie’s mouth. Eddie smiled into it and Buck stared at him like he was seeing him with a whole new set of blue, blue eyes.

“Hey Buckaroo!” Hen called at them, “Are you going to let me take a look at Eddie or are you keeping him all to yourself?”

“I like the sound of that,” Buck mumbled, but moved back as Eddie grinned at him in response, heart swooping about as much as it had while falling down to the basement level of a condemned building _._

As they walked towards Bobby and Hen, who looked none the wiser about their moment (Eddie supposed he and Buck really were close enough that any small romantically-charged extras weren’t immediately noticeable), Buck finally decided to reprimand him.

“I can’t believe you tricked me like that,” Buck hissed at him before they got into Bobby and Hen’s earshot.

“I’ll make it up to you later.”

“Oh?” Buck asked, “That a promise?”

“Later,” Eddie promised, “I promise.”

Later.

Later they would put Christopher to bed and then decompress together on the couch with a beer. It would be exactly the same routine they already kept several nights a week, it was just that they would snuggle a little _closer,_ because that was how little it took for there to be any difference at all to their dynamic. Later Eddie and Buck would help each other get changed into sweatpants for sleeping in, both dealing with significant bruising. Later they would kiss again, without the frustration and impulsiveness and anger and shock behind it. Later Eddie and Buck would lie side by side and bicker about Eddie’s ‘reckless’ decision, but fall asleep in each other’s arms after Eddie had once more told Buck that he simply refused to leave him behind, stunning the younger man to a content quiet.

Later would last as long as Eddie could hold onto it for. And if the way Buck’s arms were wrapped around him was anything to go by, then Eddie could safely say that Buck felt the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I really hoped you enjoyed! Comments, kudos and bookmarks are as precious to me as Buck and Eddie are to each other. 
> 
> Thank you also to everyone that had read and reacted to my first Buddie fic 'Mr July', you all are awesome! <3


End file.
